Rail-joint



7 (N6 Model.) 1

' J. PECK;

I Patented ja 25,188-

No. 237,o4

, Fray. l.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOHN PECK, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

RAIL-JOINT.

SPECIFICATION formingpart of Letters Patent No. 237,044, dated January 25, 1881.

I Application filed October 21, 1880. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern Be it known that 1, JOHN PEGK, of Boston, of the county of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Improvement in vRailways, or Chairs for Supportin g the Rails thereof; and I do hereby declare the same to be described in the following specification and represented in the accompanying drawings, of which-- Figure l is a top view, and Fig. 2 is'a side elevation, of one of my improved chairs and portions of the two rails and sustaining crosstie. Fig. 3 is an end view, and Fig. 4 a transverse section, of the chair and one of the rails.

This chair is designed for supporting two of what are termed H-rails or T-rails. With this chair not'only is the base of each rail held firmly down upon the base of the chair, but the rail-head is sustained both horizontally and vertically to great advantage. The rails areso firmly held and supported that there results little, if any, danger of their being crushed, cracked, or broken at and near the joint by car-wheels while traveling upon the rails. V

The nature of my invention is duly set forth in the claim hereinafter presented.

In the drawings, A and B denote the two rails; O, the sustaining wooden cross-tie; D, the chair, and E the fish or joint lap-piece.

The chair has extending down from its base a two vertical lips, b b, to embrace the wooden tie on its opposite sides, and, furthermore, the base has two flanges, c c, projecting from it horizontally, and having holes 01 d, as shown,

.for reception of the spikes or bolts used in spiking or bolting the chair to the wooden cross-tie. Extending up from the base and the outer of its flanges, as shown, is an abutment, 11, whose upper edge terminates at a level with the treads of the two rails, except that such surface at each end of it is beveled or inclined, as shown at e 6. While the abutment extends up to a level with the top or crown of the heads ofthe two rails, it is adapted to support the said heads on their outer edges or sides. It, with its rib, is intended to prevent the rail-heads at the joint from being spread or crushed or cracked by the wheels of the car. Furthermore, the abutment has on its inner side a rib, f, to project into the space through the fish or lap-piece, the two rails,

and the abutment, and screw into the latter or into nuts h h, arranged in recesses i i in the outer part of the abutment.

While the flanges serve, with the spikes or bolts, to hold the chair down to the cross-tie, the lips embracing the latter not only operate to prevent the chair from being moved transversely to it, but to prevent the cross-tie from being split or cracked by the spikes while being driven into it. The abutment prevents the rail from being moved laterally by blows or pressure of the flanges of the car-wheels. The rib prevents the rails from working up at the joint. It also supports the rail-heads against the crushing force of the wheels. The fish or lap piece not only serves, with the bolts, to confine the rails to the chair, but to support their heads against the crushing force of the wheels.

I am aware that before my present invention a tram-rail-supporting chair has been made with wheel-flange guides having inclined planes at the ends of their upper edges, such being shown in the United States Patent No.184,980, granted to me December 5, 1876. Therefore I do not herein claim such a chair, it also having what were termed sleeper-clasping flanges arranged parallel to the railsand their supporting-sleeper. These flanges, by their arrangement with the rails and sleeper, operated to prevent the chair from moving laterally on the sleeper and to the rails, such flanges not operating, as do the lips of the chair hereinbefore described, to prevent the chair from moving longitudinally relatively to the rails, such chair being adaptable to a different kind of rail and to a cross-tie rather than to a sleeper, the cross-tie being to extend across the track, whereas the sleeper usually is supported on cross-ties and extends longitudinally of the track. Nor do I herein claim railway-chairs as constructed in a manneras shown in eitherofthe United States Patents No. 2,767, to ltoebling and Mclllurtry,0ctober1, 1867; No. 205,848, to J. F. Ferguson, July 9, 1878, and No.142,235, to W. Huflman, August 26, 1873. While each of such constructions exhibits a chair having, like mine, an abutment to bear against the entire outer side of the rails, and to extend up even, or practically so, with the crowns of their heads, it has not, like my chair, lips to project down from it and embrace the crosstie to which the chair is to be spiked. The chair shown in the patent first above named has an extension from it going through the tie or ties crosswise thereof, and in no respect operating to strengthen such tie or ties or to prevent the chair from moving thereon in the direction of the rails.

While an abutment ot' the kind described or employed by me in my improved chair is productive of great advantages and is useful, as hereinbet'ore mentioned, it is liable in use, though bolted to the rails, to cause loosening of the confining-spikes in the tie, such being due to the impact of the wheels against the abutment at its ends, even when they are beveled down at the corners. As the rails may become worn or crushed down at and near the joint, as they will be in time, their upper surfaces come below that of the abutment, and consequently the impact of the wheels against the ahutments to cause the chair to move in directions transversely of the tie becomes increased in degree. The vast momentum of a train of railway-cars moving at a speed of twenty-ti ve miles per hour is sul'- ficieut, when a wheel of it strikes the abutinent,to exert against it a very material strain, tending to move transversely to the ties the chair as well as the rails coupled to it. The pressure thus suddenly induced, tirst in one and next in the opposite direction of the chair against its confining-spikes by trains going opposite ways, operates to loosen the hold of.

the spikes in the tie, from which they are liable to be ejected by forces resulting from 001 cussion of the wheels against the rails.

By combining with the chair, provided with the abutment to extend to the top of the railheads, the lips to project down from the base of the chair and embrace the cross-tie on its opposite sides, it will be seen that such lips operate to counteract the tendency of the chair to be moved in manner and by means as described, so as to weaken the hold of its spikes, the lips relieving the spikes from the strain that they would be subjected to by the impact of the wheels against the ends of the abutment where extended a very little above the rails. Thus it will be seen that although a chair may have such lips to its base, and may also have an abutment to extend up to the top of the neck of the rail, the said chair difl'ers from mine, inasmuch as it has no extension of the abutment up against the side of the railhead, and up to the crown of the head, an extension which is to afford a protection or lateral support to the head. such as it does not have when the abutment simply rises to the top of the body or neck of the rail. Thus my chair, having this extension, and also having the lips to counteract the tendency of such element through impact of the wheels of the cars to loosen the spikes in the tie, differs in its construction from either of the chairs above referred to, as well as from that shown in the British Provisional Patent No. 635 for 1866.

What, therefore, I claim as my invention is-- M y improved railway-joint chair, substantially as described, having the rail-sustaining abutment to extend up against the neck and the head of the rail to the crown of the latter, and also having the lips to extend down from the base and to embrace the cross-tie, all essentially as set forth.

JOHN PECK. Witnesses:

R. 11. EDDY, \V. W. LUNT. 

